‘Have you been shot before?’
He nodded.
Letta dipped her bread in the hot tea and lifted it to her mouth.
‘We can’t go on like this,’ she said finally. ‘Can we contact your uncle?’
Marlo hesitated. Letta watched him closely.
‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘Maybe?’ Letta repeated. ‘Where does he live? What does he do?’
She could feel herself getting angry. He wouldn’t tell her the truth. He was trying to concoct some story to keep her happy. She raised one eyebrow. He nodded.
‘There is something I should tell you,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Letta, finishing her tea. She was enjoying this, she realised. Let him make up a lie. It would be interesting to see him try to hoodwink her.
‘My uncle is a Creator. I am his apprentice.’
Letta almost stopped breathing.
‘Desecrator, you mean,’ she said.
‘That is Noa’s word, not ours. We call ourselves Creators. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’
‘I knew already,’ she said.
Marlo’s eyes widened. ‘You knew?’
‘The gavver told me.’
‘And you didn’t betray me?’ Marlo said softly.
‘I was going to, I know I should, but now … now … I think we should contact your uncle and let him take you away.’ The words poured out before she had time to think about it. ‘I cannot keep a Desecrator here. My master and I are loyal to John Noa.’
‘I know you have been told terrible things about us.’
‘Yes,’ said Letta, blood rushing to her face. ‘I know you are thieves and murderers. I know you want to destroy the new world.’
‘Do you?’ said Marlo, lying back on the pillow. ‘Or do you just believe whatever Noa says?’
Letta stood up, her knees shaking. ‘You should be ashamed.’
He closed his eyes. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I will think of a way of contacting my uncle.’
Letta turned and walked away. Outside the room door she stopped to get her breath. His words rang in her ears.
Do you just believe whatever Noa says?
She remembered the scene on the street earlier and Daniel’s face as they threw him on the cart. That wasn’t right. She was sure of it. But she did know what the Desecrators did. She knew how they stole food and water. She had seen their posters, inciting people to rise up against John Noa. She knew they staged shows from time to time, using banned arts to distract the workers. She shook her head. They might not be as vicious as the bandits that roamed the forest but they were equally destructive. She hadn’t time to think about it now. She had to be at the schoolhouse at twelve bells with words for Mrs Truckle. Words that weren’t written yet. She hurried to her desk and started to work.
She arrived at the school as the bell struck the hour. Letta opened the door and walked in. The small classroom was exactly as she remembered it. Here she had sat, day after day, and learnt the List words; memorised the definitions; learned to form letters. Children in Ark were taught the bare minimum when it came to reading. Enough to allow John Noa to communicate with them using the written word, but no more. Letta had learnt to read and write properly from Benjamin.
‘Letta,’ Mrs Truckle said, walking across the floor to her. Letta smiled at her. The old woman seemed more stooped than usual.
‘Words ready,’ Letta said, proffering the boxes, but Mrs Truckle didn’t smile. She didn’t even look at the neat array of boxes now sitting on her table.
Letta frowned. ‘You good?’ she said stiltedly, wishing she could free her tongue and speak properly.
Mrs Truckle shook her head, and Letta could see the tears welling in her eyes. Letta went to her.
‘Sit,’ she said, pulling out a stool for the older woman.
Mrs Truckle sat down, her shoulders heaving as she struggled to control her sobs.
‘What’s the matter?’ Letta said softly, abandoning List in her worry about the schoolteacher.
‘Daniel.’ Mrs Truckle coughed out the word.
‘I know,’ Letta said, taking her hand.
‘Good boy,’ Mrs Truckle said, turning her eyes to Letta. ‘Good boy.’
‘I know,’ Letta said.
‘Not first time,’ the woman went on. ‘Always in trouble. Always, but good heart.’
Neither of them noticed the door open. The click of it closing made Letta look up in time to see Werber Downes standing there, his round face wreathed in smiles. In his hand he held a bottle of water for the teacher.
‘Mrs Truckle!’ he said and then stopped, noticing Letta.
‘No harm to all here,’ he said. ‘Mrs Truckle sick?’
The old woman stood up quickly, wiping her tears away.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No sick.’
‘Healer boy taken,’ Werber said, drumming his fingers on the table. ‘Daniel. Criminal.’
Letta felt her face flush.
‘No criminal,’ she spat at him. ‘Daniel no criminal.’
Werber smiled.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Criminal. Steal food. Bad boy.’
He smiled again, wiggling his eyebrows, mocking the boy who had been banished, and Letta had an overwhelming desire to punch his stupid face. She raised her hand, blood rushing to her face, but Mrs Truckle caught the hand and held it firmly.
‘Help carry words, Werber,’ Mrs Truckle said swiftly, never taking her eyes off Letta. ‘Help carry words to back room.’
Werber’s face fell, but he knew better than to disobey his old teacher. He put down the water and started to pick up the word boxes. Mrs Truckle’s eyes met Letta’s and they nodded to one another. Letta felt the weight of unspoken words, frozen in the air between them.
As soon as she got home, she sank down on to the floor behind the counter. What would Mrs Truckle think if she knew a Desecrator was upstairs in Letta’s bedroom? He had to go. Somehow, she had to get him out of the house. But how?
Much later, worn out from going over the problem from every angle and finding no answer, Letta climbed the stairs slowly and went to see Marlo. He was awake.
‘How do you feel?’
‘Thirsty,’ he replied and smiled sheepishly. She took the cup that sat on the table beside the bed and held it for him as he drank. His hands under hers shook badly.
‘I had another dream,’ he said.
Letta said nothing.
‘I dreamt I was a fox. I was living in the forest and being hunted by dogs.’
‘Stop,’ Letta said, unable to listen to any more.
Marlo looked up at her, one eyebrow raised.
‘I don’t want to hear about the forest,’ she said curtly. ‘The gavvers banished a boy there today.’
‘Someone you knew?’
Letta nodded.
‘Do you know where they entered the forest?’
Letta shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I followed them towards the West Gate but then I lost them.’
Marlo nodded.
‘My friends might be able to help, if …’
‘If?’
Letta felt her heart fill with hope.
‘If they knew where to look. If the wild animals don’t find him first. I don’t want to raise your hopes.’
‘How can we let them know?’
‘There might be a way,’ he said.
‘Go on,’ Letta said urgently. ‘Tell me.’
‘Maybe you could contact Finn, but –’
‘But?’
‘But – I have to be able to trust you,’ he went on, not meeting her eye.
‘You don’t trust me?’ Letta snapped at him. ‘I’m risking everything for you and you don’t trust me?’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Marlo said. ‘It’s just … it’s not my secret to tell.’
Letta waited, her mouth set in a hard line.
‘There’s going to be a show on Friday.’
‘A show?’
‘Finn and som
e friends are going to perform and then talk to the workers. You can find him there.’
Talk to the workers. Letta knew the Desecrators didn’t just talk to people. They incited them. Tried to lead them to revolt against John Noa. She felt sick.
‘Where?’ she managed to ask. ‘When?’
‘The main wheat field, at midday. There’s a shed there, with a flat roof.’
‘They’ll be on the roof?’
‘Yes,’ Marlo said.
‘Maybe by then you would be well enough to go and meet them?’ Letta said. ‘And tell him about Daniel?’
He nodded again, but didn’t say anything.
‘And if you are not well enough …’
His beautiful blue-grey eyes looked up at her and she could see the fragility in them.
‘I will go,’ he said. ‘I will be ready.’
The words hung there in the air between them, sparking with electricity. Finally, Letta nodded.
‘So be it,’ she said.
CHAPTER 5
Non-List
Music
Agreeable, harmonious sounds
LETTA didn’t sleep well that night. Her dreams were full of panic, and more than once she shot up in bed, convinced there was someone in the room. By the time morning came, she was relieved to be able to get up.
She tiptoed out of the house, going by the back door, pulling it quietly behind her, careful not to wake Marlo. The streets were quiet. A shrew crossed her path, darting by only a stride from her ankle. She hated shrews. If they were bigger, Benjamin had once told Letta, they would be one of the most feared animals on the planet. She watched it go, its tapering snout investigating every stone on the road. Like all animals, it was protected in Ark. It reminded her of Marlo’s dream. Her stomach tightened every time she thought of Daniel. Was there a wolf out there following his scent even now? How long could he last without food and water?
Her feet seemed to find the path to the beach all on their own. Fifteen minutes later she was standing on the sand, watching the waves break on the rocks. She turned and walked into the wind, feeling it lap her face and pull her hair back so that it streamed behind her. The sea mist settled on her warm skin. It feels like I’ve been crying, she thought, wiping the moisture away.
What would Benjamin do? she wondered. Would he help Marlo? Would he talk to Desecrators? What would her parents do? She knew so little about them.
Both her parents were experienced sailors. They had been in the leading team John Noa had put together to explore the ocean and see if they could find land. When Noa called off the exploration, convinced that they were the last humans to survive, her parents had gone out one last time, against John Noa’s express orders. Benjamin had always said that they weren’t rebels just romantics, idealists. They had set off like innocent children, sure they would find other places.
‘They had it all mapped out,’ Benjamin had told her sadly. ‘Charts and compasses and who knows what else. Thirty days, your mother told me. They would sail for thirty days and if they found nothing turn around and come home. Sixty days in all. They had taken enough food and water to last that long.’
Benjamin still didn’t like to talk about them and had warned Letta not to mention them outside the house.
‘John Noa was very disappointed,’ he told her once. ‘Disappointed that they had not listened to him.’
And Letta had taken his words to heart. She didn’t ask about them, much as she longed to know more.
The sound of male voices jolted her out of her reverie. She jumped, her pulse quickening. But it was only the water workers coming to start filling the barrels of salt water, destined for the water tower on the far side of town where it would be cleaned and purified for drinking.
She turned and looked out to the horizon. Why hadn’t her parents come back? They had left her with such emptiness inside, an enormous crater that wouldn’t be filled.
She tried to imagine what it would be like to see a small sailboat suddenly appear on that blue-grey canvas. She’d always imagined their boat as having silver sails. How fanciful was that? And yet she couldn’t picture it any other way. Silver sails, a tall dark man hauling on the main sail, beside him a smaller woman with golden hair and an upturned nose, just like her own. They’d sail right in and then suddenly he would see her. The rope would fall from his hands. Her mother would turn to see what had distracted him and …
She shook her head. She was getting too old for these daydreams. She had real things to worry about. Reluctantly, she let the imagined boat go and turned her mind to the fugitive living under her roof.
He wasn’t getting any better, she was sure of that. If she did go on Friday, if she did meet the Desecrators, at least they could come and take him. And maybe they could help Daniel. She tried to persuade herself that if she did go, it would be for Daniel. Marlo was a Desecrator. She should feel no need to help him, and yet …
He wasn’t what she imagined a Desecrator would be like. He was just ordinary. Ordinary and nice. She had enjoyed talking to him when he was well and able to joke with her. She wasn’t used to talking to people her own age and to someone who didn’t talk List. His language was amazing. She knew, of course, that older people had good language, though they were forbidden to use it. She tried to imagine how he had been reared, in hiding obviously, surrounded by people who spoke whatever way they wanted to. She felt a twinge of envy. She loved Ark but she hated List. She had never really admitted that before, she thought, bending to pick up a shell. Not even to herself.
She raised her arm and threw the shell hard, towards the sea, but it fell short, surfing the sand and coming to rest in a small hollow, safe from the waves. No. She couldn’t imagine it. Besides, she had always been taught that words were the root of evil. Before the Melting, people had used all the words there were, and it did nothing to save them. John Noa would say that they talked themselves into the disasters that they created. The animals lived peacefully on the planet, doing no harm, living in harmony with nature. Man was the one who spoiled everything. Man and his words.
She dragged her toe in the sand making a narrow trench. Tomorrow she would go to the wheat field. She couldn’t see any other way forward. She looked out to the horizon again. Sometimes people didn’t have any choice about which road they took. She knew that now. She raised her hand and saluted them, as she always did, and turned for home.
Marlo was worse, much worse. She found him tangled in a damp sheet, raving incoherently. His lips were caked and dry, so dry she could see the tiny fissures in them. His eyes rolled in his head and he kept trying to sit up. His words were slurred and delivered in that strange, half-pitched whine.
Tea, she thought. I’ll make him tea and sponge him down. That will help. She rushed out of the room. She wasn’t a healer. What if he died?
In the living area, she found the bowl she needed and half-filled it from her precious water supply. Bowl. Water. Flannel. She was beginning to feel feverish herself. What else? The tea. She still had some ginger. She hunted around furiously. Not in the cupboard where she kept such things. Where else could it be? Her breath caught in her throat. There was no ginger. The tea was no good without it. The healer – she would go and talk to him. He might help her. She raced out through the shop, pulling the heavy front door behind her. The healer’s shop was on the other side of the road. She hurtled across and was just about to bang on the door when it opened. The healer, John Lurt, stood there, his long face drawn and grey.
‘Yes?’ he said, raising one eyebrow.
‘Help,’ Letta said. ‘I need help.’
‘Come,’ he said and stood back to let her through.
The healer’s shop was one of the houses designed by the Green Warriors just before the Melting. A perfect square, thirty strides on each side, made from a plastic resin invented in the last decade before the Melting. It was warm in winter and cool in summer, requiring almost no energy to run, unlike Benjamin’s porous house across the road. The herbs and
other remedies hung from the ceiling in great clumps, and shelves covered the walls, displaying the familiar brown paper twists the healer used to package his wares. The place smelt dry and medicinal, Letta thought, as she went to stand at the counter. The healer followed her, and then resting one hand on the counter, he turned to face her. His eyes were steely, Letta thought, the pupils small and wary. He leaned his head towards her.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Fever,’ Letta said.
‘You?’ the man replied, scrutinising her face.
‘No,’ Letta said. ‘Boy.’
The man turned and pulled down his coat from a hook near by.
‘I go,’ he said.
‘No,’ Letta said, as firmly as she could. ‘No go.’
The man sighed.
‘Must see,’ he said. ‘Who sick?’
Letta swallowed hard. ‘Please help,’ she said again.
There was silence for a minute. John Lurt was waiting for an explanation.
‘Who sick?’ he said again, and for the first time she noticed the hardness in his words, the way he dropped them sparingly, as though they were too heavy to carry any more.
This had been a mistake, she thought. A mistake. The word bounced in the space between her and the healer.
‘Nobody,’ she said, backing out. ‘Nobody.’
Then she went through the door as quickly as she could, feeling his eyes following her. She ran across the street, her mind racing. She would go back in and lock up the shop. Then she could concentrate on taking care of Marlo.
She pushed open the front door, berating herself for having been so careless in leaving it open in the first instance.
Mrs Truckle was standing at the counter. ‘Letta!’ she said. ‘Need two more boxes.’ Then, seeing Letta’s expression, she continued apologetically, ‘Door open. Walked in.’
‘Yes,’ Letta said quickly. ‘Two more. Have here.’ She had forgotten to add them to the order Mrs Truckle had asked for. She reached under the counter and pulled them out.
‘You good?’ Mrs Truckle said gently.
‘Yes,’ Letta lied, ‘good.’
The Wordsmith Page 5
